Students of the Game: Washington school drawing Division I recruits, major college recruiters
Juan Cardenas, Quinton Hamilton, Mohammed Selim, Christian Bentley and Prince Oduro go through drills during practice at First Love Christian Academy, which plays in the National Christian School Athletic Association. This is the first year First Love has had a basketball team.
Aneury Parra dribbles down the court during practice for the First Love Christian Academy basketball team.
Katie Roupe/Observer-Reporter Quinton Hamilton works on agility drills during the Knights’ basketball practice on Monday, December 14. There are 12 players from six different countries in the team.
Washington has quickly become a regular stop on the recruiting trail for Division I basketball coaches.
Since August, coaches from Pitt, West Virginia, James Madison, Robert Morris, Kent State and Kennesaw State have been making regular stops at the Brownson House to scout dominant post players, quick guards and a 6-7 small forward.
These recruits don’t attend Washington High School.
They don’t go to Trinity, either.
The players who are attracting attention from major college programs are students at First Love Christian Academy.
A non-affiliated, private high school with a Bible-based approach to education, First Love is located at the site of the old Patten Elementary School on 150 Sunset Boulevard in Washington and opened in 2005. It has an enrollment of 40 students – 12 are members of the basketball team – and is expected to double next fall.
The roster includes five players from Canada; one each from England, Tunisia, Colombia and the Dominican Republic; and three from the Pittsburgh area. There are five players 6-5 or taller. Their team, the Knights, who compete in the National Christian School Athletic Association, do not have to abide by all WPIAL or PIAA guidelines. The one rule First Love Christian Academy must follow is a student cannot turn 19 years old before his senior year. That allows First Love to play an independent schedule that includes tournaments across the region against some of the nation’s top prep school teams and its seven home games are at the Brownson House, with the next scheduled for Jan. 2 against New Day Academy, a prep school near Cleveland.
Head coach Khayree Wilson has brought talent from across the globe to Washington and that has caught the eye of major college programs.
“I was pretty excited that I got invited to come play,” junior forward Prince Oduro, a native of Toronto, Ontario, said. “It’s been my dream since I was 10 to play in college. This gives me the chance to do that.”
The squeaking of shoes and the bouncing of basketballs on the hardwood floor echoed throughout T.S. Fitch Memorial Gymnasium as Wilson closely watches near the metal bleachers.
Basketball being played in the building adjacent to the Brownson House on a mild December afternoon has been common since the gymnasium was erected in 1962, but this scene was different.
Teenage boys darted up and down the court, weaving three at a time toward the basket. One player dribbled the ball past midcourt, passed to a teammate on the wing and the third quickly made a smooth stride toward the basket while saying, “Ball, ball, ball.”
That final bounce pass went to Oduro, a lean 6-8, 220-pound 17-year-old with wide hips and a wing span reaching nearly eight feet. He caught the ball in stride and firmly dunked it, making the eye brow-raising play look as effortless as a free throw.
In most gyms around Western Pennsylvania, Oduro would stand above the rest, a player with an aggressive nature under the basket who mixes refined post moves with a soft touch from within 15 feet.
That hasn’t always been the case since Oduro came to Washington. He looks like a point guard compared to Mohammed Selim, a 17-year-old from Tunis, Tunisia in North Africa. Selim stands 6-10 and it takes him a few minutes to trump Oduro’s dunk, catching a ball in mid-air before slamming it through the rim, holding on until his feet drop to the ground. That brings a smile to Wilson’s face.
The two are like most high school students in Washington – they have a love of sports and aren’t afraid to laugh at a teammate’s expense, but they didn’t come to attend Wash High or Trinity.
Since 2008, First Love has offered programs for international students such as Oduro and Selim, and college preparatory course. Basketball is its newest addition.
These two, and the 10 others on the team, are preparing for college in another way – by honing their basketball skills to attract the attention of Division I basketball coaches. Wilson has a vision of building a program that develops Division I talent while competing for national championships, and it’s starting to look more like a reality than a pipe dream.
Oduro received his first Division I scholarship offers from St. Francis (Pa.) and Kennesaw State, but each player on the roster is getting looks from major college programs.
“A coach from West Virginia came a few weeks ago and said to me, ‘I guarantee you have nine or 10 Division I recruits on this team,'” Wilson said. “We have a makeup and model of everything you need a college basketball program. It’s really, ‘What are you looking for?’ I tell college coaches that whatever you need, I probably have it in my gym.”
Wilson, a 31-year-old East Liberty native who stands only 5-5 with dreadlocks hanging down to the middle of his back, has found a way to integrate 12 players from six different countries into a close-knit group that can compete with the nation’s best.
The program began with a conversation between Dr. Kathleen Miller, the school’s superintendent, and Wilson last January. Miller, who founded First Love 10 years ago, was seeking advice on how to place a Nigerian exchange student into an AAU basketball program.
Wilson, a well-spoken former college football player whose quick wit and oratory skills immediately grab his players’ attention, saw his stint as head basketball coach at Imani Christian end in 2012, months after the WPIAL suspended the program for failing to comply with PIAA transfer rules. Wilson says his vision for the program, which was to compete with an independent schedule and a similar roster to his one now, contradicted with the school’s plan to join District 7. Wilson said he, “prayed for almost three years for the phone call,” which finally came from First Love.
After looking into Wilson’s coaching credentials and how differing opinions led to him leaving Imani, Miller decided to start the program with some conditions. One is that each student-athlete must make academics and faith a priority.
She gave Wilson 12 roster spots and the two got to work. The school has supplemented the nearly $30,000 tuition for each player, which includes room, board and travel expenses, with private donations, scholarships and financial aid.
Like many private schools, First Love needed to create a buzz, a way to attract students to the little-known school in Washington.
“It’s hard these days knowing how to advertise best,” Miller said. “This is bringing awareness quickly, which is great. This summer, we were rated 14th out of 7,800 schools. We’re in the top 99.9 percent percentile and that was before athletics were even thought about, so we knew we had a strong academic base. However, a lot of people want to send their child to school somewhere that has sports, and with PIAA rules, they can’t play at other schools. You almost have to start it yourself.”
Wilson made phone calls to AAU coaches in Canada and reached out to contacts overseas to find talent to compete against some of the top high school programs in the nation.
The communication barrier could have been a major problem, but junior forward Juan Cardenas, a 6-7 Colombian who was the first to arrive, helps freshman Aneury Parra learn English and the others all know the language. It wasn’t always easy. When Cardenas arrived, he walked off the plane to meet his new head coach and the two paused for several seconds until Wilson pulled out his cell phone to use Google Translate. Selim’s arrival gave Wilson another coaching tool. He speaks four languages, often relaying messages to Cardenas or Parra on the court.
A raw post player who is still learning the physical nature of American basketball, Selim is fluent in Arabic, English, French and Spanish. Wilson uses Google Translate and hand signals to communicate during games.
“Everyone has asked the same thing: ‘What are you going to do because you have kids who know different languages?'” Wilson said. “Basketball is a universal language – cut, put the ball in the hoop, rebound, box out. It’s the same across the board, no matter the language.”
The eclectic group of personalties have forged a bond while living together. The 12 players stay in a large house in Washington that the school purchased for $25,000 last year.
Three residential advisors, including a tutor, live with the students, who do chores and spend their free time playing video games. The school provides three meals per weekday. Dinner and meals on weekends are often donated by people and organizations throughout the city. The players come from different socioeconomic backgrounds, but basketball is their common ground.
“They’re goofy when you get to know them,” sophomore Darrell Brock, a transfer from Gateway, said of his teammates. “We have different cultures in the house and languages, but we’re always joking around. Sometimes they say stuff and I ask them, ‘What did you just say?’ It’s really different, but it’s coming together for us.”
Prior to their arrival, Miller had her reservations and concerns about bringing 12 high school kids into one house. She feared egos and poor behavior in the house, but her routine of surprising the kids in the common area of their house has yielded another surprise. More often than not, Cardenas is doing dishes and instead of goofing around, the players are often doing homework or laundry.
“I love them. We couldn’t have picked a better 12,” Miller said. “I really thought I was going to deal with cocky, arrogance and maybe entitlement, but we really don’t have that. The picture you had in your mind and the concerns aren’t there.”
That development has translated to success on the court. The Knights entered the weekend with a 10-1 record while playing a schedule mixed with teams across the region. They lost by only three points to Westtown School – a prep school in West Chester that has two of the top prospects in their respective classes – and has perennial prep school powerhouses Oak Hill Academy and Huntington Prep on the schedule. First Love has beaten Imani Christian, Obama Academy and Kiski Prep twice. It also won the Neshannock Tip-off Tournament by defeating the host team, 72-70, in the title game and the NCSAA Mid-Atlantic Shootout at Geneva College with an 85-27 victory over Dayspring Christian Academy of Mountville in Lancaster County. The schedule includes trips to Morgantown, Canada, Virginia, New Jersey and Ohio for various tournaments, plus two matchups against WPIAL teams – Shaler and Valley.
The Brownson House has become a regular stop for major college coaches and Wilson even added to the program earlier this month when he hired Ashton Gibbs, a former three-year starting point guard at Pitt, as First Love’s director of player development.
During his time coaching in the Pittsburgh area, Wilson saw many talented basketball players turn to football because of a lack of opportunities to get noticed by college coaches. With the talent pool spread out in the WPIAL, the top college programs in the country are unlikely to see most high school basketball games.
That’s why Wilson wants First Love’s roster to eventually include six students from the Pittsburgh area and six from abroad – helping both groups get noticed and receive a unique education. Two of the Knights’ current players, including Brock, attended Gateway last season, while the other was at Obama Academy.
“My goal is to uplift Western Pennsylvania basketball,” Wilson said. “That’s always been my goal. I believe Western Pennsylvania has hidden gems, but they don’t get seen. This can give them that opportunity. I don’t plan to recruit kids from Wash High or Trinity. If their parents enroll them in the school, that’s something I can’t control. I want to help them by playing them and getting Division II or Division III coaches here to help them get noticed.”
As practice ends, Selim sits to catch his breath and watches as more than a dozen small children dribble basketballs up the court. They remind him of learning the sport only five years ago in Tunisia and the common goal that has united 12 kids from different backgrounds to leave home for Washington.
“My dream is playing in the NBA,” Selim said. “That’s why I’m here.”